As Mexican fast food places went, the little restaurant in a dormitory town in southern Connecticut was not too bad.

My wife and I started chatting with the owner and at some point during the conversation she mentioned that she had cancer and that her insurers had stopped paying for the drugs she needed because she had hit the benefit ceiling under her policy.

Six months later we were back in southern Connecticut, the Mexican place had gone and, presumably, the proprietor.

This was the US health system before the Affordable Care Act.

As flawed as Obamacare is, it at least put a stop to some of the most egregious excesses of the American healthcare system which were a disgrace.